The present invention relates to a blood purifying filter and a blood purifying apparatus including the blood purifying filter, which are configured to separate plasma from blood of a patient using a plasma separation filter, remove hepatic toxins from the separated plasma using adsorbents, such as activated charcoal or anion exchange resin, and simultaneously perform hemodialysis which removes water-soluble toxins and uremic toxins from blood.
Liver performs many functions such as a metabolic function of treating various nutrients existing in our body, a function to store nutrients required by our body, a synthesizing function to synthesize gall juice and albumin, and a function to detoxify various toxins brought into our body such as alcohol or drug. Accordingly, when a liver is damaged, the substances such as ammonia and bilirubin to be removed from a body by the hepatic metabolism are accumulated in the body. The accumulation causes complications such as jaundice, hepatic encephalopathy, and multiple organ failure.
Liver is known to have a certain extent of self-recovery even when its functioning is degraded due to illnesses. In case of acute liver failure, however, since the patient cannot live by the time the live recovers by itself, a liver transplant is regarded as the only cure. As shown by the liver transplant data published by OPTN/SRTR Annual Report in 2010, only 30% to 40% of the patients waiting for a liver transplant actually get the treatment. An artificial liver treatment is required for liver failure patients to serve the function until a liver transplant or self-recovery.
Artificial liver apparatuses currently in clinical use are limited only to MARS of Gambro Inc. and Prometheus of FMC. MARS removes hepatic toxins from blood by adding a plasma protein called albumin in dialysis fluid. Since albumin is expensive, MARS comes to a costly treatment. Prometheus has such configuration that plasma is separated from blood to be filtered through ion resin adsorbent for removal of toxins existing in the plasma and then hemodialysis is performed after the plasma separation and adsorption. Accordingly, Prometheus apparatus has a complicated system including a plasma separation filter, two adsorption filters removing toxins from plasma, and hemodialysis process, giving rise to a high treatment cost like MARS.
In order to solve such limitations of typical artificial liver systems, Korean Patent No. 1071402 entitled “Apparatus for Purifying Blood” discloses an apparatus that is configured to remove toxins from plasma without using expensive albumin and integrate plasma separation and absorption processes into a single filter. By implementing plasma separation and adsorption processes in a single filter, the entire artificial liver system is simplified from the typical artificial liver apparatuses. However, the system still requires additional hemofiltration or hemodialysis process. That is, in a case of a patient who needs intensive blood purifying treatment for liver failure, the removal of water-soluble toxins by hemodialysis or hemofiltration is as important as the removal of liver toxins or protein-bound toxins through adsorption.
As described above, since typical artificial liver apparatuses require hemodialysis filter, plasma separation filter, and a plurality of other adsorption filers, they are costly. Since the filters are all separately arranged to allow blood or plasma to flow against gravity, each filter needs room for its arrangement. Accordingly, there is a limitation in that the system is big in size and its setting and preparation for treatment take much time.